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Iowa 2004 presidential primary precinct caucus and caucuses news">
Iowa 2004 presidential primary precinct caucus and caucuses news, reports
and information on 2004 Democrat and Republican candidates, campaigns
and issues Iowa
Presidential Watch's
IOWA DAILY REPORT
* QUOTABLE: "AARP gives you the 'Good
Housekeeping Seal of Approval' when it comes to
seniors' issues,"
said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. "They
care deeply about the future of Medicare, and they
wouldn't endorse something that would lead to the
end of that program as some critics contend." "Currently, the
Bush-Cheney campaign has a goal of $170 million,
while liberal soft-money groups committed to
defeating the president have pledged to raise as
much as $421 million,"
said Christine
Diversion, communications director for the
Republican National Committee. “Those wonderful folks
who missed the last hay wagon home from the '60s
are desperate not so much to stop the war as to
reprise the glory days of their youth, when sex,
friendship and "revolution" flowered in the
streets. But the times, they have changed, and
Viagra and raisin bran can only do so much.”
-- London's
gathering of the clang, by Wesley Pruden of the
Washington Times. "This election is about
what kind of America we are, what kind of America
we want to be,"
Edwards said. "It is also about getting the
power in your democracy -- it belongs to you,
doesn't belong to that crowd in Washington --
getting the power in your democracy out of the
hands of those insiders and getting it back to
you," said John
Edwards. “I am fighting for my
vision and I like my vision,”
said John Kerry. "The bill coming out of
Congress violates the basic principle of the
Hippocratic oath -- do no harm,"
Wesley Clark
said about the Medicare drug proposal. "Once again, we see
Howard Dean's motivation is a political
calculation on what is best to win this campaign,
and not a leadership decision on what is the right
thing to do," --
Steve Murphy, Gephardt campaign manager. "I will put the full
commitment of the United States government behind
all possible efforts to stop the scourge of AIDS
at home and abroad,"
said Dick Gephardt. “John Kerry's new "Real
Deal" stump speech is very well written. (You may
read into that anything you wish.”)
-- From ABC’s
The Note. "Where are the referees?
They swallowed their whistles,"
Republican
National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said
about billionaire George Soros spending whatever
it takes to defeat Bush. "They passed laws
to prevent this kind of thing." Howard Dean begins his
stump speech like a wedding singer welcoming the
guests: "We're going to have some fun with
President Bush tonight," Dean assures the crowd,
but "we'll also be talking about what we're going
to do" to improve this country, "which is
important, too."
-- from the Boston Globe. “…As a losing candidate,
he [John Kerry] will probably be asked to address
the convention at some out-of-the-way time when
the hall is two-thirds empty and the network
cameramen are feasting on chicken wings down the
street. One prediction: No one will confuse his
appearance with Kennedy's famously fiery "the
flame may flicker" address at the 1980 convention,
also known as the last good speech that Bob Shrum
ever wrote.” --
From the Boston Globe. "You know, if you die by
way of a pitchfork, it's not a very good sign of
which way you're going,"
said Mrs. Stuart
Roy, communications director for House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay regarding just being missed by a
pitchfork that flew into his car’s windshield on
the way to work. "There's got to be some
government regulation so that people are treated
like human beings and not exploited,"
Dick Gephardt
said about NAFTA. "I'm inclined not to
support anybody, that's where I am right now,"
Sen. Tom Harkin
said. He added that he is reserving the right to
endorse later.
* TODAY’S
OFFERINGS:
*Dean Team strategy *Dean’s not buying it
*Big Bush bashing today *Dean’s endorsements
*Where the money goes
*Gephardt’s response to Dean’s negative ad
*NAFTA anniversary *Kerry’s new ad
*Kerry, Dean wrong on guns
*Kerry would elevate SBA to cabinet post
*Edwards’ middle class theme
*Edwards wins press release wars
*Clark Rocks as he goes Hollywood
*Clark opposes bi-partisan drug bill and energy
*Planet Kucinich *Lieberman files in NH
*Now Carol Moseley Braun *The winnowing begins
*Poll watching *Trade key to union divide
*Bush likely to win *Judiciary scandal
*Politics, politics, politics
* CANDIDATES &
CAUCUSES: Dean (on his birthday yesterday)
said that he would win the White House and
probably take both Houses of Congress. In an
interview with Public Radio, Dean stated that he
and his advisors have plans to target their
moneymaking Internet machine to funnel money into
targeted districts vital for Democrats to win
control of Congress. Dean suggested that this
would enable him to forego the current Washington
gridlock and accomplish his goals. Dean sees his insurgent movement
as being able to join with the mainstream and
belives that the rest of the nation has the same
perspective as his movement. Howard Dean came out against the
current proposed bipartisan, AARP supported drug
benefit plan in the strongest terms:
"The Republican Medicare drug bill is a real-life
HMO: Huge Missed Opportunity. Instead of taking
this opportunity to come together and provide a
meaningful drug benefit seniors can count on,
Republicans and the White House have put the
interests of the drug industry and HMOs ahead of
the best interests of older Americans.
"This bill drives seniors out of traditional
Medicare into heavily subsidized private drug
HMOs. Under this plan, seniors could end up paying
more out of pocket than they receive in benefits,
and retirees could end up losing valuable drug
benefits that they worked hard to earn. And the
poorest seniors -- 6 million or more -- would have
worse coverage than today, yet be forced to pay
more for it.
"Just as with the war, politicians in Washington
will be under enormous political pressure -- this
time from the White House, drug lobbyists and HMOs
who are mounting a full court press to pass this
special interest boondoggle. But, just as with the
war and NCLB, the damage this bill causes to our
seniors will come back to haunt this
administration and those who support it for years
to come. I urge Democrats to stand up for our
seniors and stand strong against the special
interests and political pressure. We will have a
Medicare prescription drug benefit in this country
that works for our seniors only when we change
Washington, change presidents, challenge corporate
special interests and change the direction of this
country," Dean said. Dean will take a stage very near
Enron's former headquarters in Houston today for
delivery of a major message address about the
linkage between politics, policy, and the economy.
The speech will feature such thrillers as
corporate power, campaign finance, and corporate
greed. We are sure to hear Dean repeat this
material time and time again… expect major
Bush-bashing. The campaign had earlier plans to do
a big foreign policy speech on Nov. 18 (postponed
twice), but that's now scheduled for sometime in
December.... Dean is gaining important
endorsements from Reps. Elijah Cummings, chair of
the Congressional Black Caucus, David Wu, and
centrist Democrat Jim Moran. Rep. Sheila Jackson
Lee is expected to endorse Dean in Houston. If you were wondering where the
money that Dean is raising will go, a Dean
spokesman said the negative ad running against
Dick Gephardt in Iowa through November 26 will
cost $250,000. Some more money has also been spent
to mail Democrats in Iowa a flier critical of
Gephardt. The ad shows Gephardt in the
White House Rose Garden last year with the
president announcing details of the congressional
resolution authorizing Bush to go to war against
Iraq. It is the first ad of the 2004 race to
mention another Democratic presidential candidate
by name. A female voice-over says:
"October 2002 -- Dick Gephardt agrees to co-author
the Iraq war resolution, giving George Bush the
authority to go to war. A week later, with
Gephardt's support, it passes Congress." The commercial goes on to note
that Gephardt supported Bush's recent $87 billion
spending request for Iraq and Afghanistan. Dean
tells viewers that he opposed both the war
resolution and the spending bill, adding, "our
party and our country need new leadership." Sarah Leonard, Dean's Iowa
spokeswoman, said the ad is not negative and does
not contain a single word critical of Gephardt.
Now, that’s spin.
Political commentator Nina Tottenberg said the
Dean campaign has trouble with the truth. I
wonder where she got that impression… Gephardt for President Campaign
Manager Steve Murphy issued the following
statement today in response to Howard Dean's new
negative television ad. The commercial, which
represents the first negative ad in Iowa
Democratic Caucus history, is notable for
misrepresenting Dean's position on the $87B
legislation to rebuild Iraq:
"While Howard Dean argued that he needed to ignore
campaign finance spending restrictions to beat
George Bush, it is now clear that the real reason
was to beat Dick Gephardt in Iowa.
"Furthermore, it is irresponsible for Governor
Dean to attack Dick Gephardt for his vote to
support funding to keep our troops safe and
rebuild Iraq. Simply put, support for that bill
was the responsible thing to do and Dick
Gephardt's leadership stands in marked contrast to
that of Howard Dean.
"Governor Dean said in September that 'we have no
choice' but to support the $87b legislation. Then,
in October, Dean said he didn't intend to make
whether you were for it or against it an issue in
the campaign. Once again, we see Howard Dean's
motivation is a political calculation on what is
best to win this campaign, and not a leadership
decision on what is the right thing to do." “NAFTA has cost the United
States nearly 900,000 jobs,” Dick Gephardt said at
an economic roundtable in South Carolina on the
10th anniversary of NAFTA's passage in the U.S.
House. S. Carolina textile industry has suffered
job loses in the state. "As I predicted, these trade
agreements have resulted in a race to the bottom
where corporations in every sector of our economy
move around the globe looking for the cheapest
available labor, abandoning American workers and
manipulating workers abroad," he said. "I have never left the side of
the American worker in any of these battles and in
turn led the fight against a series of bad trade
agreements including NAFTA and the China trade
deal because I not only believed these agreements
were bad for American workers and their families,
but were also detrimental to workers in Mexico,
China and throughout the world," Gephardt said. Sen. John Kerry is going to try
and drive a wedge in Howard Dean’s coalition in
Iowa with a new television ad on the environment.
Recent polls showed that Kerry, while sharing the
same demographic group of Iowa Democrats, held an
advantage among those calling themselves
environmentalist. Excerpts from the ad:
Announcer: George Bush- he let
corporate lobbyists rewrite our environmental
laws, sided with polluters not taxpayers.
And now he’s trying to rollback the Clean Air Act.
John Kerry. He stopped George Bush and the oil
companies from drilling in the Artic and he has a
plan for energy independence.
John Kerry: I want to develop
alternative fuels and more efficient cars. We’ll
create 500,000 new jobs and we’ll never have to
send young Americans to war for Mid East oil
again.
Announcer: John Kerry. The
courage to do what’s right.
John Kerry: I’m John Kerry and I
approved this message Sen. John Kerry took the
anniversary of the assault weapons band bill to
bring up the fact that he and Howard Dean
disagreed on gun control. The Dean campaign pushed
back with charges that Kerry is irrelevant because
he is from Washington. "Sen. Kerry must've seen
the latest New Hampshire poll and decided he would
try yet another Washington-insider attack on
Governor Dean," said Dean spokesman Matthew
Gardner. Sen. John Kerry, still
campaigning in Iowa, would elevate the Small
Business Administration to a cabinet position.
Kerry contrasted his small business plans while
portraying the Bush administration as only
favoring the big and powerful. Kerry proposed that the
government should raise federal contracts to small
business from 14 percent to 30 percent. Another
proposal by Kerry would allow short-term tax
deferrals that allow growing businesses to
reinvest money. Kerry goes into great detail on
his
website about the four keys he sees as central
to his small business plan. Here are the four
points: JOHN
KERRY: A POSITIVE AGENDA FOR SMALL BUSINESS (1)
Small Businesses A Large Voice in the Kerry
Administration (2)
Health Care at One-Third the Cost (3)
Help Small Businesses Get the Tools They Need to
Succeed (4)
Strengthen America’s Small Manufacturers The
Sioux City Journal reports on Sen. John
Edwards’ fourth visit to Sioux Land:
As he went through various issues, a theme
appeared -- Edwards holds that Bush is not the
right president for middle/working class
Americans. Too beholden to business interests,
Edwards said, Bush used tax cuts to shift the
burden onto common Americans who are "one medical
emergency or one layoff" from financial ruin.
It is vexing, Edwards said, to see the "sea
change" over the past three decades in
middle/working class families becoming more
imperiled, unable to put together down payments
for homes or to save for college.
Edwards said the Bush administration "is as
anti-worker" as any in history. He criticized Bush
for being hostile to unions, not raising the
minimum wage and attempting to cut back the
overtime pay that many families rely on. Today the Edwards campaign won
the press release wars by issuing five -- count
them, five -- press releases on its
website:
1. Latino supporters launched Unidos con Edwards
Monday at events across the country.
2. Senator John Edwards (D-NC) Monday joined
Governor Jim Doyle (D-WI) in a town-hall forum to
meet voters and discuss Edwards' plan to get
Wisconsin's economy back on track.
3. Senator John Edwards Monday began the launch of
his new book, Four Trials, on his campaign
website. The book will be available at bookstores
across the country.
4. John Edwards, Thursday will discuss his health
care plan with doctors, and medical students at
Meharry Medical School in Nashville.
5. John Edwards, Wednesday will meet with students
and teachers at Western International High School
in Detroit. During the American Education Week
stop, Edwards will discuss his plan to revitalize
America's high schools. By the way, in Wisconsin
Edwards said he will raise the minimum wage, make
sure every child has health care and provide
bonuses for teachers who work in less-affluent
areas. The
LA Times reported on Wesley Clark’s pilgrimage
to the liberal holy land of dollars Hollywood. The
Eagles played a concert to help the dollars fly
his way as 350 guests (at up to $2,000 a person)
attended the event:
Ben Affleck, politely waving off a photographer,
and Jennifer Lopez were there. So were Ted Danson
and his wife, Mary Steenburgen, who grew up with
Clark in Little Rock, Ark., and introduced him
from the stage. But most in the crowd were
industry executives with deep pockets — like the
evening's sponsors, music executive Irving Azoff,
producers Jordan Kerner and Norman Lear, and Hard
Rock Cafe founder Peter Morton — routinely a
source of cash for liberal candidates.
"I didn't come to trash George Bush. I came to
replace him," Clark told his audience. A critic of
the current administration's policy in Iraq, the
four-star general got the loudest applause when he
pledged the use of force "only, only as a last
resort." Wesley Clark argued for
bipartisan debate on drug bills and energy policy
and said that the drug bill violated the rule of
doing no harm. His harshest attack came on the
energy bill.
"America needs leadership that debates priorities
like energy policy in a transparent and bipartisan
manner-not behind closed doors.
“The energy bill that emerged from the Republican
conference was crafted in the dark of the night,
with not a single Democrat at the table. The final
bill was cobbled together by special interests and
a handful of Republican legislators. In fact, Vice
President Cheney started the policy-making process
by holding secret meetings with unnamed energy
industry associates.
“Congress should reject this compromise. We are
only beginning to understand the details of the
legislation, but it is clear that the bill
provides billions of dollars in giveaways to
special interests while doing little to reduce
America's dependence on foreign oil and failing to
address global warming.
We need a policy that strengthens the energy and
environmental security of all Americans. To get
this type of balanced policy, we first need to get
the oil industry out of the Oval Office," Clark
said. Rep. Dennis Kucinich continues
to gain the mantle of the ultimate liberal with a
press release that is more a who’s who of liberal
biographies. The release is so long that you have
to go to his
website to view it. Kucinich also has come out
against vouchers and managed to wait until the
third sentence in the press release before
bringing up opposition to the war. With his mother and one of his
sisters at his side, Connecticut Sen. Joe
Lieberman yesterday officially filed to run in the
New Hampshire Presidential primary. Lieberman was
the fifth major Democrat and the 21st person to
file to run in the state’s first-in-the-nation
Presidential primary. Democrat Carol Moseley Braun has
hired Patricia Ireland, a former president of the
National Organization for Women, to manage the
former Illinois senator's presidential campaign,
an official said. Moseley Braun lost two advisors
Friday, said Paula Xanthopoulou, the campaign's
Chicago operations manager. Last month, Ireland
was dismissed as chief executive of the YWCA of
the U.S.A. The Manchester
Union Leader reports that the first limited
debate excluding the bottom three presidential
candidates is to occur in New Hampshire today: The
six major candidates who lead the New Hampshire
and nationwide polls will meet today before about
an audience of about 1,000 and a press delegation
of 150 to 175, said AARP spokesman Steve Marchand.
The candidates scheduled to attend are former
Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Massachusetts Sen. John
Kerry, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, North Carolina
Sen. John Edwards, Connecticut Sen. Joseph
Lieberman and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt. “This
is the first event in the country that has these
six and only these six,” Marchand said. “Other
candidates and additional angles are important,
but the fact is, many people are interested in
seeing what these six can offer.” A New Hampshire Poll shows that
Dean has extended his lead over John Kerry. Dean
has gone from 35 to 39 percent since September and
Kerry has risen 1 percent to 23 percent now. The
undecided are 14 percent and the rest of the field
doesn’t seem to count other than Clark is
dropping. An Iowa Poll reported by the Des
Moines CBS affiliate shows the race between Dean
and Gephardt at 26 percent each and Kerry at 15
percent. An Associated Press story
running in Iowa demonstrates the divide between
the service unions supporting Howard Dean and the
industrial unions supporting Dick Gephardt. Trade
is a difficult issue in Iowa because much of
Iowa’s agriculture product is shipped overseas.
However, Gephardt’s opposition to NAFTA even
though he was majority leader of the House and
opposed Clinton’s pushing NAFTA has won him
undying loyalty from the industrial union
organizations. Gephardt’s proposal for
international minimum wage received a setback in
Iowa when Iowa State University Neil Harl
discounted the idea as not practical or feasible
on the weekly Iowa Press show on Iowa Public
Television.
* ON THE BUSH
BEAT: The
Washington Post story investigates the pattern
of Presidents running for re-election: The
pattern has repeated itself perfectly. Dwight D.
Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and
Bill Clinton all ran for re-election without major
challenges from within their own parties -- and
all easily won second terms. Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy
Carter and George H.W. Bush faced primary
challenges while seeking re-election -- and all
were ousted in the general election.
*NATIONAL: A judiciary scandal is
developing and it could grow into a serious
campaign issue. The
Washington Times reports on the growing
accusations that Democrats are not only selecting
filibuster targets based on race but also
coordinating their delays to effect the outcome of
important cases such as the Michigan race
discrimination case. Leaked memos and documents also
have given rise to charges of theft by the
Democrats and Washington Capitol Police are now
investigating. The issue could also result in
Senate hearings of an Appellate Judge.
"The case was fixed," Tom Fitton, president of the
legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, said
yesterday. "It ought to be examined by the Ethics
Committee."
"It raises questions about whether Kennedy's
staffers were in cahoots with [Chief] Judge [Boyce
F.] Martin," Mr. Fitton said. "This brings the
misconduct case back to the Senate in terms of
investigative leads."
The accusations against Judge Martin came from,
among others, a 6th Circuit colleague who wrote an
unusual appendix to his dissenting opinion. In his
dissent, Judge Danny Boggs said Judge Martin — who
was appointed to the bench in 1979 by President
Carter and who was the circuit's chief judge at
the time it heard the Michigan case — violated
several court rules by naming himself to the panel
hearing the case. Democrat candidates and
Congressional Democrats may not be opposing the
Energy and drug bills for purely good policy
reason. Surprise, surprise -- politics could be at
play according to
Washington Post article:
The candidates are coming together so quickly
because they say the bills are bad policy. But
some see a political benefit, too -- Bush is on
the verge of taking away two more political issues
and putting Democrats in the unenviable political
position of playing defense on energy costs and
prescription drug costs, two key areas of great
concern for voters.
If the bills are passed and signed into law,
Republicans and some Democrats predict Bush will
probably get a political boost that could resonate
through the 2004 elections. Along with Bush's tax
cuts, education overhaul and defense policies,
Republicans also could claim they are delivering
tangible results to Americans by controlling the
White House and Congress.
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